| intro | DuckDB is an in-process SQL OLAP database management system. Simple, feature-rich, fast & open source. | Redis (REmote DIctionary Server) is an open source, in-memory, NoSQL key/value store that is used primarily as an application cache or quick-response database. | in their own words - but I reserved the rights to remove some bold claims like "the best", unless it is widely recognized. |
| vendor | DuckDB Lab | Redis | |
| initial release | 2018 | 2009 | |
| latested version | 1.3.0 "Ossivalis" | 8 | We don't put a release date here as the software is patching frequently. So tracking it is not much useful. |
| supported platforms | all major OS (Linux, macOS, Windows) and CPU (x86, ARM) | RHEL, Ubuntu, Amazon Linux Here is the Redis Enterprise version. The open source one shall be runnable on *BSD, Linux, MacOS. | supported OS/CPU platforms |
| db-engines ranking | 45 | 7 | ranks from https://db-engines.com/en/ranking (06/25) |
| relational? | yes | no | Is it a relational database? (1) Most database are actually with some extensions, for example, nested data types, graph support, etc, which we usually called "multi-model". (2) Some of them are product family, meaning they have more than one database. Here we focus on the main one but explain others when needed. |
| open source? | yes | yes/no | mainly the engine code |
| license | MIT | Tri-licensing model Starting with Redis 8, Redis Open Source is moving to a tri-licensing model with all new Redis code
contributions governed by the updated Redis Software Grant and Contributor License Agreement.
After this release, contributions are subject to your choice of: (a) the Redis Source Available License v2
(RSALv2);or (b) the Server Side Public License v1 (SSPLv1); or (c) the GNU Affero General Public License v3 (AGPLv3).
Redis Open Source 7.2 and prior releases remain subject to the BSDv3 clause license. | |
| price: box software | 0 free download | | |
| on-premise offering | yes | yes | if no means you can't buy "box" software from them |
| cloud offering | yes: via MotherDuck MotherDuck is a cloud data warehouse platform that builds on top of DuckDB, an open-source analytical database. It provides a managed, serverless environment for storing, sharing, and collaborating on data while offering features like cloud storage, a web-based SQL IDE, and hybrid query execution (combining local and cloud processing). | Redis Cloud | |
| technical doc | https://duckdb.org/docs/stable/ | https://redis.io/docs/latest/ | |
Comparison: DuckDB vs Redis